–Went to the Folsom farmers market for tangerines. Not many vendors there–cold and wet.
–Motor City pizza for dinner.
Month: December 2023 (Page 1 of 4)
–Took Grace shopping at Smart & Final.
–Kirill Yuzh wired $7,000 to CIT Bank for the Rolex yellow gold 1503, which I don’t even remember.
–Went to Harbor Freight to get a butane torch, then to Home Depot to get some butane.
–Cut up a whole bunch of boxes.
–Took Grace to Dr. Taylor, ophthalmologist in Folsom. Apparently her eyes aren’t as bad as she thought. Got a referral to a retinal doc, and MAY need cataraact surgery.
–Red Baron pizza for dinner.
–Went to Dr. Cecille Taylor, ophthalmologist, in Folsom. Turns out I have really bad glaucoma in my right eye. And cataracts of course. And blepharitis (inflammation of eyelids; cause of dry eyes, so Restasis is useless). She prescribed some drops for glaucoma and will follow up in a month. Also prescribed erythromycin ointment for blepharitis. Crap.
–A quiet Christmas. Gifts were exchanged, ham/mashed potatoes/broccoli were eaten.
–Put up the little Christmas tree and some minimal decorations.
–Still have to wrap Grace’s (few) presents. Just not in the mood this year.
–Bought yet another Cremina. This one was not cheap ($2,000), but seems genuinely never used.
–Played a lot with cameras. Brought the X Vario out again and retired the D-Lux 7 after taking some pics of birds and squirrels through the patio door. Though the X Vario is bigger and heavier and (maybe) a little slower, its image quality is way better.
–Discovered (maybe) one reason Helios and Zeiss uncoded lenses look crappy on the SL2. It’s complicated, but has to do with Auto ISO reverting to weird default values depending on the shooting mode. In a nutshell, low ISO (100, say) –> slow shutter –> motion blur.
–Downloaded RAW Therapee and played with it a bit. Could be interesting.
–Still deciding which Watchco to keep. Non-date is running well, but hands aren’t perfectly aligned. Date is running even better, but I can’t seem to change the date by popping the crown in and out, as I thought I used to. Grrr…
–Took some pics with the Helios lens. Even though the SL2 showed perfect focus, the abutilon blooms came out fuzzy. Same thing happened with the CL. Don’t know the cause. I was at some distance, but still: monster sensor, huge magnified image in the viewfinder. Will try some more on the M9 when the adapter comes, but I don’t know. The lens is a 44-2, which is supposed to be the best of that model, and the glass is pristine. I can see the rangefinder not being calibrated to it, but with the SL2 it’s real-time super-magnified focus. It should be magnificent. [Edit] Compared the Helios with the Summicron 50 on the SL2. Night and day. Helios is crap; will toss.]
–Played with regulators. Found some Tekna parts (no tiny springs, though). I have five that work nicely.
–Picked up stain remover (for Grace) and fourth Paladin Halloween brush (for me) at UPS.
–Initiated transfer of $212,734.03 from CIT Bank savings to Ally Bank savings.